Raven
by KymmaRaven
Summary: After the Brotherhood of Evil falls, things seemingly return to normal. That is, until Raven is driven to leave the team. Two years pass, and new evil is lurking in the shadows. Titans all over the world are being attacked and, at times, even vanishing. War is brewing on the horizon, and the light of hope is fading. And for the Teen Titans, nothing will ever be the same. Maybe RxBB
1. Chapter 1

**So this is something that I've been planning for a long time (since last school year, actually), and I finally came up with a prologue that I was satisfied with. I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

 _"You're the child of a monster!_ _You're_ _a monster!"_

 _"You don't belong in the Teen Titans! You don't_ _deserve_ _it!"_

 _"I wish you'd just disappear! You're supposed to be good at that anyway, right?!"_

A hooded figure crouched atop a tall stone building surrounded by the many lights of the city, yet still shrouded in darkness. She sat perched on the edge, head tilted down as she gazed into the crowds far below. People spoke to one another, drove their vehicles, entered stores, walked their silly dogs… All around, nothing seemed amiss, nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. Such ordinary people, leading such ordinary lives… She envied them, if only somewhat. Part of her, a part she would likely never admit existed, would give anything to be like those people; normal, without a care in the world besides school and maybe work and silly little dramas between friends and family. That part of her would give anything to be like them, to be able to disappear into a crowd as though she didn't exist… but no. Too many people knew her, hated her, wanted her dead. She could never be normal.

A strong wind blew around her, forcing her hood back and off of her head, revealing her face for the first time that night. Her long hair flowed behind her, soft as silk and shining softly in the moonlight. Her skin too had a soft glow to it. Her eyes, which were the same color as her hair, blinked once. As she focused on the scene below, a black circular device, small enough to fit comfortably in her hand, vibrated at her hip. The vibration was faint, almost imperceptible, but still it was enough to draw her attention to it. She unclipped the device from her belt with one hand and raised it to just below her ear. As she listened, a soft female voice, barely above a whisper, began to speak.

 _"Someone's broken in. They've made it past all our security."_ A series of loud crashes sounded over the words, nearly drowning them out. _"We thought we could handle them, but-"_ There was another crash, this one louder, closer. _"They're stronger than we thought."_ There was yet another loud sound, closely followed by a burst of static that persisted for several moments before the voice returned, clearer and more urgent than before. _"We need you."_

Without a word, the figure stood and slipped soundlessly into the shadows of the full moon night, pulling her hood up disappearing without trace.

* * *

 **Posted 06-02-15.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello, Animercom! Yep, I am. :) Yeah, I like Robin, too, but Raven is my personal favorite. I might just add them! They were so much fun to watch during that episode. :)**

~レイブン~

He stood in an alley surrounded by tall buildings and cluttered with large piles and mounds and clumps of garbage. Though the moon was out and full, thick, dark, lengthy shadows covered the ground and surrounded him entirely. No one else seemed to be around, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched by something... malevolent. Then, as if on cue, glowing red eye began appearing all around him, filling every dark crevice imaginable and staring unblinkingly at him in a decidedly wicked manner. Several pairs of eyes began moving forward and the bodies they were attached to stepped into a lone patch of moonlight. The owners of the eyes were hideous. They looked like black rat-like creatures, only these rats were much worse than the regular kind, proven by the fact that each individual head carried two sets of pure, bright red eyes, one pair resting directly above the other. As more and more of the rats began to edge toward him, he heard a frightening caw overhead. The ominous sound was quickly repeated and he risked a quick glance upward, only to see a large group of dark crow-like creature with those same horrible eyes circling overhead.

Heart pounding in his chest at the obvious threat these creatures represented, he began slowly backing away, his hands raised to his chest defensively with his palms facing out. The rats followed his slow migration step by step until he was forced to stop when his back hit the rim of an old dirty dumpster that sat amongst all the garbage with its lid shut securely. He whirled and watched helplessly as it began to rumble and shake violently as though it were experiencing its own private earthquake. Moments later, yet more rats burst from it as the lid shot open. They poured forth in thick impenetrable black waves and, with a cry of alarm, he he turned back around and began running for his life. Heedless of the small dark lifeforms he was undoubtedly trampling beneath his feet as he went, he raced to the open end of the alleyway he was trapped in. That single entrance was his only chance for escape. Normally he could have transformed and flown, probably even _would_ have, but right now he didn't think he could. Not with those birds above him. For some reason, he just got the feeling that, no matter what he turned into, he'd get killed if he tried to fly away. For that matter, he felt certain that he would die if the rats trapped him here, as well. With that in mind, he tried turning into something else, _anything_ else that could help him escape, but all his attempts were made in vain. He was as helpless as an ordinary human right now.

Finally pulling free from the tide of small, dark bodies, he burst from the alley at top speeds, moving so fast that he nearly fell and hit his face on the pavement. Stumbling forward several steps to regain his balance, he made a split-second decision and turned left before running out into the middle of the street. Save for the cars parked along the sides, the the street was empty, despite it being a four-lane road that he knew for a fact always had traffic. As he ran beneath one of the birds, which had just made a dive for his head with its wickedly sharp, oily black talons at the ready, he was conscious of the ocean of rats heading his way. Ducking to avoid another crow, he ran through the shadow of a tall stone building overlooking the street and the many stores and whatnot across the street from it. The full moon filled the sky above him, so large and close that he could hardly believe that it was real. Then, without any warning, a giant creature of pure, black energy exploded into the air from beneath the road, sending large chunks of asphalt flying everywhere and knocking him back on his rear. He watched in wide-eyed shock as, hovering before the moon, the massive creature unfurled its mighty wings and unleashed a terrible cry. It looked like... a raven.

~レイブン~

Beast Boy awoke with a cry and sat bolt upright in bed, panting heavily as he wiped his forehead with the backs of his hands. His heart pounded in his chest as he fought to catch his breath. Finally, still panting, his flopped backward onto his bed, bouncing a bit unintentionally as he did so, his arms spread out at his sides as his eyes closed. _A raven... huh?_ His eyes slowly opened to stare at the ceiling, dull and uninteresting though it was. _I haven't thought about her in two years, so why am I suddenly having nightmares about those creatures I saw in her mind once?_ Looking back over that thought, it occurred to him, perhaps for the first time, that it really had only been two years. It felt so much longer than that, really, though he wasn't sure why. It wasn't like he missed her. Far from it. He was _happy_ she was gone. With her gone, he no longer had to deal with her sarcasm, her moodiness, her creepiness, her secrets, her lack of teamwork, her problems that he and the others were always dragged into... he no longer had to deal with any of it. It was wonderful not having her around. So... why the nightmare, then? _Maybe I just ate something bad. It's not like I've had a dream like that before. ...Maybe some milk or something would help._ His next course of action decided, Beas Boy rose and tossed his blankets aside before climbing out of bed and heading to his door. Having slept fully clothed, even going so far as to be too lazy to take his shoes off, Beast Boy spent no time dressing before exiting his room.

Entering the kitchen, Beast Boy was surprised to find Robin already there, rummaging through the fridge. Robin's head poked up at the sound of the door, and he blinked at Beast Boy. "Oh, Beast Boy. i didn't know you were awake."

"Uh... Couldn't sleep," Beast Boy lied, deciding after a moment's hesitation that he didn't feel like talking about his dream, unusual and unexpected as it was.

"Yeah, me either," Robin sighed, returning his attention to the fridge. "It's been too... _quiet_ lately."

"I know what you mean," Beast Boy agreed as he claimed a seat at the counter. "I mean, I don't miss the Brotherhood of Evil or anything, but it would be nice to have some butt to kick once in a while."

"Guess those days are over for now," Robin replied as he finally settled on a snack of some kind and pulled it out into the open. "But evil will return eventually. We just have to be patient."

"But it's been two _years_ ," Beast Boy protested with a deep frown. "All we've had to deal with since then are petty robbers and wannabe super villains that can barely work a gun!"

"I know it's frustrating, but we really do have to be patient," Robin said, fixing Beast Boy with a serious look. "There's nothing more we can do. But I can promise you this: evil will _always_ return. As long as there's good in the world, evil will be there to counteract it. It'll be back. Just give it time."

Beast Boy sighed heavily and stood up. "I'm gonna go for a walk."

"Beast Boy, it's two in the morning. You sure you want to be out there right now?"

"I just need some fresh air, that's all."

"Okay. If you're sure."

Without another word, Beast Boy headed out into the night.

~レイブン~

The city streets were crowded and noisy, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. The familiarity was actually comforting, if he were being totally honest with himself. But he wasn't, so he chose to find the crowds and the noise annoying instead. He wasn't entirely sure why he was in such a bad mood. though he supposed that that could simply be attributed to the fact that he should have been _sleeping_ right now, rather than wandering the streets all alone. Still, he couldn't deny that he always seemed to be in a bad mood whenever it concerned _her_ , especially when they were actually near each other. Yet another reason to be glad she was gone. But, despite that, he couldn't help but wonder once in a while where she had gone, what she was doing, if she was okay... Shaking such thoughts from his mind, he weaved through yet another crowd and turned a corner, only to stop dead in his tracks as soon as he did so. _No way._

Before him was the street from his dream, with the same alley and everything. Looking up into the sky, he quickly determined that the moon, while full as it had been in his dream, was completely normal in size, _unlike_ how his dream had portrayed it. Swallowing hard, he risked a quick peek down the alleyway. There were no glowing red eyes, no heaps of garbage, no unusually dark shadows. There wasn't even a dumpster. Turning to the street, he soon located the building he had run beneath during his dream. It looked _exactly_ the same. Was there some sort of significance to that? To any of this? _Or am I just being paranoid?_ Uneasy, he decided to leave and walked quickly through the area and entered a nearby park. The park, much like the street from his dream, was located in the heart of the city. It wasn't one he'd been to before, but he didn't mind the unfamiliarity. The park was large and very nice. Much of it was covered in open stretches of lush, light green grass, but there were some trees here and there as well. There were quite a few rolling hills in the park, though there was also a great deal of flat land as well. On the far right side of the park was a large pond of sorts with crystal clear blue water. Various types of lily pads and water fowl floated lazily on its surface. Even better than that, save for a few benches here and there, there were no man-made structures here to mar the natural beauty of this place. And even better than _that_ , there was no one else here but him. It was wonderful, truly.

Selecting a bench, he sat down and closed his eyes, savoring the cool air. It was nice out here, he decided. He remembered when the team used to go out to the park all the time to just hang out, or maybe have a picnic, or even to just play some Frisbee or something. Back then, they'd also gone out to pizza all the time, and gone to late-night parties once in a while, spent evenings together watching scary movies, challenged each other to stupid dares that resulted in numerous laughs, played pranks on each other, traveled together... His eyes opened and he gazed solemnly at the moon still hovering in the sky. _Come to think of it... we used to have a lot of fun together._ But that had all stopped after she had left. _But why? We can still have fun without her, can't we?_ It was beginning to seem less and less likely that that was true, if he were being perfectly honest with himself. But he wasn't. So he refused to believe it. _We haven't needed her all this time. We still don't._ _We never did._

Sighing softly, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes again. He didn't know how long he just sa there, savoring the cool early-morning breeze, but the tranquility was suddenly shattered by a massive, thunderous _boom_ that seemed to come from below ground. The explosion (or at least what he _assumed_ to be an explosion) was so fierce that the ground shook visibly. His eyes snapped open and he leapt out of his seat to whirl around and look at a large stretch of flat grassy park that really shouldn't have held his attention. But, for some reason, it did. There was nothing special about it at all, but for some reason- Then, suddenly, there was a second explosion, this one so massive that the ground he had just been staring at exploded as well, despite the explosion having come from far below ground. Alarmed, he ran over to the giant hole that now split the park. Ignoring the thick clouds of smoke billowing out of the hole as a result of the explosion, he peered down into the hole. As the smoke shifted and flowed upward, he was able to catch occasional brief glimpses of metal structured below him. His eyes grew wide. _A... building?_

Gritting his teeth tightly, he prepared to jump down inside and deal with whoever or whatever was doing all this damage, only to be cut short when a figure suddenly flew rapidly out of the smoke, cloak billowing as they went. His eyes, which had already been wide, widened further when the figure landed a short distance away. The figure wasn't wearing her hood like she normally would have been, though she was wearing the same cloak. Her hair, which used to be kept shirt, now flowed to the middle of her back. Other than that, she looked exactly as he remembered her. Seconds later, he was distracted when two more unexpected people emerged from the smoke. It was Jinx and Kid Flash, both Honorary Titans, not that they ever really communicated with any other Titans. As he watched, Jinx quickly approached the cloaked figure. From where he was standing, he could still make out her words, though they were a bit quiet.

"They're gone. After they set off those explosions, they left." The cloaked figure said something in response, but her words were too quiet for Beast Boy to hear. "We'll call you if we need you again. Thank you."

With a single nod, the cloaked figure took to the sky and began flying east. Startled into action by her movement, Beast Boy began running after her. "Raven!" She never stopped, never looked back. Never once did she look at him. And, in mere moments, she was gone.

~レイブン~

 **So... Sorry this is late. Also, "レイブン" literally means "Raven". Posted 06-07-15.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone for reading! It means a lot to me! :D Now for individual replies:**

 **Hello, themadzlove! Thanks! Glad you enjoyed! :)**

 **Hello, biggtedd! Well, wait now more! Here's the next chapter! :P**

 **Hello, Barracade! Thank you! So glad you enjoyed! :D**

 **Hello, Animercom! Whew! Glad I managed to get him right! I personally feel that he's a lot more complex than people give him credit for, so I felt that he was a bit more difficult to write. But whatever, it was fun. :) Thanks, glad you think I got the "hatred" portrayal right, too! Yeah, that nightmare was creepy... and I'm the one who wrote it. -_- Ha! So I managed to trick you, then! Lol! XD Yes, I do hope it will be interesting. Haha, I agree! Raven's just not much of a kid person. But she manages. :P**

~レイブン~

"Where did she go?!"

Jinx and Kid Flash exchanged a heavy look, though its purpose escaped Beast Boy. Not that he cared at this point, really. Finally, Kid Flash took a step forward. "What does it matter? She's gone now."

"I can still find her!"

Kid Flash looked ready to say something, but Jinx laid a hand on his shoulder to silence him. "We don't know where she goes. She comes when we call. That's the only time we ever see her."

"Fine," Beast Boy bit out. "Just tell me what happened, then."

"We can do that," she nodded. "We were going to let you all know soon, anyway."

"Let us know _what_?"

"Someone has been attacking Titans across the world, Titans more closely allied with Kid Flash and I than with you, Robin, and the others. We've been receiving calls from them, sometimes only right before the Titans calling us vanish. We think we may have an idea of who's behind the attacks, but we don't know anything for sure yet. Tonight, our base," Jinx pointed to the hole, most likely indicating the structure that Beast Boy had seen before, "was the target. We knew we they were coming, so we called for help."

Beast Boy frowned as he put two and two together. "You called Raven."

Jinx nodded again. "Yes. I called her. However, she wasn't who I tried calling first. I tried calling others who were closer, but no one was answering. So, several minutes into the fight, I called Raven. She got here just in time to save us from being killed or from being kidnapped like we suspect the Titans who vanished were. Those explosions that created that hole over there were caused by the two people who attacked us. They planted explosions all over our base and set them off all at once."

"Did you get a good look at whoever attacked you?"

"No. They destroyed our lights. It was too dark to see clearly."

Beast Boy restrained a sigh and asked relatively calmly, "And how is _she_ involved with this, besides helping save you guys or whatever?"

Jinx and Kid Flash exchanged another look before Jinx spoke once more. "We don't know. She won't tell us anything."

"She had to have told you _something_ ," Beast Boy insisted. Even Raven didn't keep _everything_ to herself. ...Right?

"No, nothing," Kid Flash said, the barest hint of a sigh in his voice.

Beast Boy shook his head. "Fine. I'll tell Robin what you guys told me. We'll be on the lookout."

"Right." With that, Beast Boy turned and walked away.

~レイブン~

Walking down the street from his dream for what felt like the third time that morning though was really only the second, Beast Boy sighed and gazed up at the moon. _She's back._ He didn't know what to think about this new development. However, he _did_ know one thing. _She's involved in this mess Jinx was telling me about. And, whatever she knows, she's keeping it to herself. Which means it has more to do with her than anyone else._ But how could she possibly be involved with the people who were apparently attacking the Titans? _And how have we not heard anything about this until now? _By pure chance, Beast Boy looked up again, only to see a figure quickly pass over the moon on her way past, heading to his left. Beast Boy froze for a split second before quickly transforming into a crow and taking off after her. He caught up surprisingly quickly, but then again, it didn't seem like she was flying at full speed. And, to top it off, she appeared to be so lost in thought that she didn't even notice him. However, when she did, she wasted no time speaking to him. Instead, she merely poured on the speed in an effort to lose him. Glaring at her back, his wings worked furiously to catch up and, not knowing what else to do, once he was close enough he turned back and tackled her. They fell a short distance and landed on the flat top of the tall concrete building from Beast Boy's dream, each rolling a short distance before landing in a crouch and glaring at each other. "Okay, what the heck is going on here?!" Beast Boy demanded.

"It's none of your business," Raven replied, her voice just as calm and relatively impassive as he remembered it.

"Titans are being attacked and that's _none_ of my business?!" he snapped.

"The people being attacked aren't _your_ Titans," Raven said, standing to her full height. "They're _mine_. That means they're _my_ responsibility and _my_ concern. This has nothing to do with you."

"What do you mean _your_ Titans?" Beast Boy asked harshly.

"I told you it's none of your business." Then she pulled up her hood, almost symbolically closing herself off, and, taking once more to the air, she flew away.

"Raven!" he called out for the second time that day, his voice, much to his surprise, sounding much more desperate than he had thought it would. Still, as with before, she ignored him and soon disappeared from sight. Gritting his teeth, he tried to decide if it was worth trying to tail her before deciding that all he really wanted to do was go home and go back to sleep. ...After he fill ed Robin in on everything, of course. And so, with a heavy sigh, he turned and transformed once more before taking off to the tower he called home.

~レイブン~

"You really... saw Raven?" Cyborg asked quietly. All the current members of their team were gathered just outside the kitchen area of their front room in the tower now that Beast Boy had woken them. Now they were all filled in on the early morning's events.

Beast Boy nodded once. "Yeah. I did. Twice, actually."

"And she said that the Titans being attacked were not 'our' Titans," Starfire said. "What does she mean?"

"I have no idea," Robin said. "Maybe it just means that she's in closer contact with them than we are."

"Or maybe it means that those Titans have found new leadership," Cyborg said seriously. "Think about it. You know as well as I do that some of the Titans aren't really fond of you or I leading them. Some of them liked Starfire. Some of them even liked BB over here."

Beast Boy decided to ignore whatever Cyborg was trying to imply by that last statement. "Yeah, and I know there were a bunch of them all over the place that preferred Raven over us. A couple of them even told me so."

"Okay, so that explains what she meant by saying that they're 'her' Titans, but not much else," Robin replied, crossing his arms.

"Guess we have a rival team on our hands, huh?" Cyborg asked.

"Not exactly," Beast Boy said, surprising everyone, including himself, at how much it sounded like he was defending his former teammate. "She just seems interested in helping her people, not in getting in our way. She wants us to stay out of her business, and that probably means she'll stay out of ours."

"So what do we do?" Starfire asked. "Can we not convince her to rejoin us?"

"Star, she hasn't even so much as said 'hi' to us in two years," Cyborg sighed. "I don't think she's coming back."

"But why did she leave in the first place?" Starfire asked even more quietly than before, her eyes on the ground and one hand holding loosely onto the opposite arm.

Beast Boy looked away as a resurgence of guilt made itself known inside of him. Doing his best to bury the feeling, he released a yawn. "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm beat. I'm going back to bed." Without waiting for a reply, he turned and headed back to his room.

"Beast Boy, we need to talk about the attacks on the Titans," Robin called.

"So talk, then," he called back. "I'm going to bed." The door slid shut behind him.

~レイブン~

 **Posted 06-12-15.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello, Themadzlove! Thanks! Glad you think so! :)**

 **Hello, Maali! Haha, here you go! XD**

 **Hello, Animercom! Well, I'm glad you think so and that you see that in him, too. Yeah, that is kinda sad, huh? Nope, I made sure that that was a surprise. And you'll find out soon enough. :) Ah, you'll find out _that_ eventually as well. :) Any guesses as of yet? Yes, she did, I'll give you that much. Good guess! **

**Hello, SadiaDaBomb! I'm so glad you enjoyed! I'm happy you think so! Don't worry, I'm not giving up this story! :D**

 **Hello, HunterMoore! Glad you think so. I'm happy you like that idea, too. :)**

~レイブン~

 **Okay, so I know you guys waited forever and this chapter is short, but I accomplished what I wanted to in here so... yeah. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.**

~レイブン~

Raven sat alone at her table beside a ceiling-to floor window overlooking the city far below. The large sheet of glass allowed so much moonlight in that the table was completely bathed in it, as was she. As she sat there thinking, gaze locked on the sky and cheek resting in hand, she felt a familiar weight in her chest. So much had happened... and so much had yet to happen as well. The situation was already dire, and growing worse all the time. If only she could find a way to stop this. If only she could defeat her enemies once and for all. If only...

How had she gotten to this point? Sure, she had always feared in the back of her mind that her friends would one day reject her and send her away, but things hadn't gone that way in the end. Instead, it was one person who drove her away and sent her out on her own. Except... she was no longer alone. She hadn't expected this, any of this. Why would these people come to _her_ for leadership? Why her? She was nothing special. Not really. She certainly wasn't a leader. That was Robin's department, and maybe Cyborg's. She wasn't a genius, either. That was also Cyborg. She wasn't very nice or friendly either, she knew. That was where Starfire excelled. She wasn't even funny.

Raven had never expected things to get to this point. With a war on the horizon and hundreds of people looking to her for guidance, for assurances, for protection, for leadership, things couldn't be any harder for her, not to mention _on_ her. She wasn't cut out for this. Not really. How could someone like her be expected to save so many people when she had failed numerous times to even just protect the four people who had once counted on her as much as she had counted on them? How could anyone expect her to be able to do this? How could they be so sure that they weren't wrong about her, that she wouldn't fail? None of this was making any sense anymore. She supposed that it never did. She'd never understood why people bothered with her, especially when she was so... _her_. She was dark and creepy and unfriendly and lonely and isolated and so many other things that no one liked to see in a person they hung around. So why, then? Why was she even in this situation if she was so unlikable? If she were really like that, shouldn't everyone who insisted on following her lead be instead following someone else? Nothing made any sense.

And then there was Beast Boy.

She had expected it to happen eventually, even if she had hoped in some small corner of her heart that the day would never come. And yet, still it had. She had seen him again against her will, twice even, and for whatever reason, he had followed her and, instead of acting as he had before she'd left the Titans for good, he'd acted more like the him she knew from her best memories. Granted what she had seen today was a more angry version of that person, but even still... It had been him, and she hadn't wanted to see him. Still, she supposed that the reunion, unhappy though it was, was somewhat inevitable. After all, it wasn't like she'd left the city. So perhaps their meeting each other again was an event that was simply a long-time coming, something that was unavoidable in the long-run as long as they were both in the same city. It made sense. Still, the situation was a wholly undesirable one, at best. She didn't want to see them again. Not now. Not after so long. Not after finally getting back up and standing on her own two feet without the help of them or anyone else. She was finally free of them and their influence, at least as much as she could be, and now suddenly _he_ was back in the picture... No, Beast Boy wasn't going to get involved. She'd make sure of it. This was _her_ problem and _her_ responsibility. It had nothing to do with him. With that in mind, she stood and headed to her bedroom. It had been too long since she'd had a decent night's rest, and no was as good a time as any to try ti do just that.

~レイブン~

 **Posted 06-21-15.**


End file.
